On 23 June 2016, Alkarama wrote to the High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, deploring the summary executions, enforced disappearances and torture by the Iraqi military forces and state-sponsored militias – including those belonging to the "People's Mobilisation Unit", an umbrella organisation of about 40 militias under the effective control of the Prime Minister – directed against the civilian population fleeing Fallujah.

On 12 June 2014, armed groups affiliated to the 'Islamic State' (IS) took over the Speicher base – a military base and air force training college situated between the cities of Beiji and Tikrit in the Salahuddin province – and executed more than 1500 Iraqi soldiers. Aware that IS was advancing towards the base, several military commanders ordered their subordinates to leave to save their lives.

On 26 May 2016, the Juvenile Court of North Lebanon sitting in Tripoli ordered the release of Syrian baker Malaz Asaad, pending final determination of the length of his sentence. Handed over to the General Security the following day to implement the Court's decision, Malaz was however never set free and is disappeared since.

Geneva, 21 June 2016

Between February and March 2013, two brothers of the Al Arnaout family were arrested in Homs by the Military Security. More than three years later, their whereabouts remain unknown. Concerned over their fate, Alkarama submitted in June 2016 their case to the United Nations Working Group on Enforced Disappearances (WGEID), hoping its intervention will help shed light on their fate.

On 29 June 2016, Layal Al Kayaje, a 31-year-old Palestinian resident in the port city of Saida, South Lebanon, and veterinary, will stand her first hearing before the Military Court in Beirut for "defamation and libel against the Lebanese army". These charges were laid down because she publicly denounced her rape by military officers when she was detained in 2013.

Alkarama expresses its deep concern over the recent developments and violations of human rights in Bahrain. In the past month alone, the authorities once again arrested prominent activist Nabeel Rajab, suspended Bahrain's main opposition party Al Wefaq and overturned the acquittal of its Secretary General Sheikh Ali Salman.

In recent years, checkpoints have become a tool for the Syrian authorities to create a climate of fear in the country. Individuals passing checkpoints are systematically thoroughly scrutinised by the security services and are, if perceived as supporting the opposition, arrested and brought to unknown places of detention, their families being denied any information on their fate and whereabouts.

Between 30 May and 1 June 2016, Lebanese lawyer Nabil Al Halabi was detained by the Lebanese Internal Forces (ISF) following a complaint by the Ministry of Interior (MoI) against him for "libel and slander" because of a Facebook post Al Halabi published denouncing corruption of MoI officials.

As organizations working to protect the rights of children and health workers in armed conflict, we are shocked by your decision announced on June 6, 2016 to remove the Saudi Arabia-led Coalition from the "list of shame" annexed to your published 2016 annual report to the United Nations Security Council on children and armed conflict, "pending the conclusions of [a] joint review" of the cases and numbers included in the text.